Wine, Women and More Wine

There are times when I look at my family as an outsider would see them and I think... this is not your normal tribe.

For instance, last night my side of the family went out for a Mother's Day dinner. Today is too tough to get together as the beautiful niece & her husband (who, and I applaud him for it, never seemed to think our family was unusual) need to travel back up Rt 95 north for a while, and we ride into NYC to visit the other side of the family. So last night was the big event.

Arriving at the restaurant from several different directions, we grabbed our table and because it was a BYOB, set out the beverages for the festivities. I looked at the bottles, looked at the family, and counted. Besides a small cooler with eight beers, there were nine bottles of wine. For nine people, and one of us doesn't drink. Interesting.

Now as far as I know, none of us is a fall down drunk. We are just a family who enjoys a little wine. Ok a lot of wine. And good wine. And it was good. And damn, if over a five course meal those bottles didn't start to disappear. Like good soldiers, they went down in the line of duty.

So we toasted the day, we talked, we drank, we ate, we opened bottle after bottle. At the end of the meal, two bottles of wine and four bottles of beer remained. Excessive? Nah, it was just right. Everyone was sober, stuffed and smiling. When it comes down to it, the wine was just a little lubricant for our dry throats caused by talking and laughing so much.

Our 3 generations of lovely ladies

It was an evening to celebrate my mom, it was a night for all of us to be together and it was, as it is always with my family... fun. Because when all is said and done, my family loves each other, and though we've lost some important members along the way, there is still a joy in being together.

Everyone should be this lucky.

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